


Bruises and Bad Excuses

by LizardDisguise



Category: Trollhunters - Daniel Kraus & Guillermo del Toro
Genre: Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, EVERYONE'S HUMAN, F/M, I've pretty much hecked up the entire trollhunters canon timeline, Identity Reveal, Slow Burn, multiple POVs, this is a very self-indulgent fic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-12
Updated: 2019-08-19
Packaged: 2020-08-20 02:54:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 16,014
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20220607
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LizardDisguise/pseuds/LizardDisguise
Summary: “How ‘bout you go in there,” Steve had said, “and buy something.”He had gone into that creepy old thrift shop on a dare. He didn’t expect any of… well… this, to come out of something as stupid as a dare.A.K.A: in which Jim buys the ONE thing in the store that he probably shouldn’t have, and now he's running around as Arcadia's new superhero, Atlas.((This fic will not be finished. Got busy with school then lost interest in writing it... Sorry!))





	1. three hundred twenty THREE dollars and thirty-two cents

He had gone into that creepy old thrift shop on a dare. It was stupid, really, but teenagers being teenagers, a few sharp words and challenges resulted in Jim standing before those ugly wooden doors of the weird old place, Steve snickering in the background, Toby pacing anxiously just behind.  
Supposedly, the place was haunted. Jim knew that was a bunch of baloney.  
“How ‘bout you go in there,” Steve had said, “and buy something.”  
“I think I’ll pass,” came Jim’s exasperated reply. He needed all of his current $328.32 to go towards that Vespa-  
“Why, ‘cuz you’re afraid?”  
“No way. It’s just a dumb store.”  
“Wuss.”  
“Fine.”  
And so, with a roll of his eyes, Jim decided that having the title “wuss” slapped on top of his already-present “loser” status at school just wasn’t worth it. Especially since he was trying to impress Claire, not drive her away. Steve, of course, knew this, and was doing everything in his power to ensure that the latter happened, not the former.  
Jim tried not to let that get to him, but this was high school, and high school was a war zone.  
So, he did what he had to. And, in this case, “what he had to” was a weird old thrift store full of weird antique stuff and otherwise unwanted crap. How was this place still in business, anyways?  
He took a deep breath, then pushed the door. It didn’t budge. Maybe it was closed? He tossed a glance back at Toby, who subsequently mimed the action of pulling the door, and Jim slapped a hand across his forehead and tugged the door open.  
Already off to a great start.  
The store reeked of what Jim could only describe as the “old lady” smell. He paced around the store, trying to avoid the pointed stares of those ugly porcelain dolls that lined the ends of every aisle (seriously??). He just needed to get something cheap. Steve said to buy something: there wasn’t a specific target, so Jim set a goal of ‘the cheapest and most normal-looking thing in the store.’ The faster he could be in and out, the better, because he’d be lying if he said this place didn’t give him the creeps.  
Aisle one, old dishware. Aisle two, dusty books. Aisle three, smelly clothing. Aisle four, just a TON of shoes. Aisle five, various knickknacks- huh. Maybe that one’ll have something worth, like, two dollars, or something. Jim looked a little closer. Old toys, small handheld mirrors, stuffed animals that were coming apart at the seams, lampshades that looked like ugly flowers, pocket watches... Buying “something” would ultimately be a huge waste of his money, because he really didn’t want any of this.  
Just as he was about to accept his fate and just leave, something shimmering and blue caught his eye at the very end of the aisle. A gemstone of some sort, blue and… glowing? No, not glowing, it must’ve just been the way the light hit it. There’s no way a gemstone could glow, after all. This isn’t some sci-fi bullcrap, this was normal, everyday Arcadia. Boring, suburban, nothing-happens-here Arcadia.  
Though, maybe he’d get Tobes to look at it later.  
He picked it up, glanced at the price tag, then shrugged to himself. It was only $5, and… it kinda felt like he needed to get this for some reason. It started as an odd, nagging feeling in his gut, like this was something really important, like this dumb rock was… calling to him.  
_James Lake,_ a voice faintly rattled around in his head. He barely even registered that it was there. _James Lake._  
His anxiety told him to put the rock down and leave. His stubborn teenage brain told him to buy the thing, because if he didn’t, he’d never hear the end of it from Steve. $5 wasn’t too bad of a setback for the vespa. He’d just have to save a tiny bit more.  
So he bought it.  
There’s no need to recount what happened when he came out of the shop and reunited with a relieved Toby and a surprisingly curious Steve- no need to recount the way Steve made fun of him for buying a rock, of all things, or how Jim’s high school status was surely going to take a nosedive nonetheless because he didn’t buy something that looked more cursed.  
Let’s just… pretend that never happened.

He made soup for his mother that evening. Nothing particularly special, but Barbara really loved it anyways. He was glad to make his mom happy.  
Sitting at the kitchen table and making idle conversation with his mom, Jim noted that he was keenly aware of the gemstone that sat in the pocket of his jacket. Otherwise, though, dinner came and went uneventfully. He retreated to his bedroom afterwards, taking the gemstone out and setting it down on his desk.  
“Okay,” he said pointedly to the stone, “what gives?”  
The gemstone, of course, was just a gemstone, so it wasn’t like it would even respond to him.  
“Aaaaand, now I’m talking to a rock,” Jim mumbled to himself. “this is stupid.”  
Of course, just as Jim turned his attention away from the thing, digging through his backpack to grab the Algebra homework that he really didn’t want to do, the rock glowed brighter, tearing his attention back to it.  
“Seriously?” he picked it up. Along one of the stone’s facets was a… message, or something? In white text, which was definitely not there when he had purchased it, it said:  
“For the glory of Merlin, daylight is mine to command,” Jim read aloud, and the stone vanished from his hands entirely, turning into a wisp of blue light that floated around him before slamming into his chest. He was lifted into the air, defying gravity itself, and-  
His usual outfit was gone, he noted when his feet touched back down. His blue jacket had been replaced by skin-tight black material with detailing of vivid blue lines and patterns that pulsed with the same energy as the gemstone. Speaking of which, the gemstone had situated the majority of its energy on a circular shape on the fabric, just over his heart. Over his eyes, a band of that same black material, with just a hint of the blue along the edges. A sword materialized in his hand and he stared down at it in awe.  
What was this? An outfit transformation that rivaled that of a magical girl anime, a weird sword, light as a feather but dense as steel. His entire body practically _glowed_ just like that gemstone had. Had he seriously bought some sort of superpower rock at the thrift store? Jim laughed to himself- this was one hell of an origin story. What were the chances?  
He raised the sword in the air, and—  
“Jim?” There was a soft knock at his bedroom door. Jim threw himself against the door to hold it shut, just in case his mom tried to, well, open it.  
“Uh—" Jim stammered, “I’m, um, I’m doing my homework, don’t come in!”  
“I just wanted to let you know I’ve got the night shift tonight,” She said through the door, “I’ll be leaving soon.”  
“Okay, see you in the morning.”  
Footsteps receded from the door. Jim let out a breath he didn’t realize he was holding.  
“Disappear,” he told the… rock? The outfit? The sword? He wasn’t entirely sure what he was talking to. But, if he turned into this, uh, whatever this was, then surely there was a way to turn it off, too. Right?  
“Go away. Goodbye. Recede. De-transform.”  
Turns out, saying synonyms for “disappear” didn’t do much in the form of turning back into Regular Jim. Luckily, he had the whole night to figure that part out, with his mom at work.  
And so he did just that. He snuck out into the backyard after he was sure his mom left, deciding he needed a little more open space. Waving a magic sword around in the confines of his room would surely lead to disaster.  
Just after midnight, after playing around with the sword in his backyard for a while, he found out that if he tugged on the blue circle on his chest, he could effectively de-transform. The crystal itself never made a reappearance, he noticed- it must have vanished... inside of him(???) after he said the magic words, or whatever.  
It was, however, replaced by the outline of a circle permanently etched over his heart in vivid blue like a tattoo, which Jim didn’t notice until he took a shower at 1:30am to get all the sweat off.  
He hoped his mom wouldn’t see it, because she’d ground him for life.  



	2. Claire's got some opinions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Claire hated the idea of Atlas. But then she saw him.

For the past two months, some weirdo in a superhero costume had been running around fighting… monsters. Villains that didn’t, and shouldn’t, even exist in Arcadia. And yet, out of the blue, this guy shows up, and at the same time, things like _goblins_ start becoming a public threat. Claire was, frankly, baffled by the whole scenario.  
He was all the news ever talked about these days. They called this lunatic “Atlas,” claiming he “carried the weight of Arcadia on his shoulders,” and most people seemed to worship the guy. Any time Claire’s parents flipped on the TV, it was always Atlas this and Atlas that. It was like he was the center of the entire universe now. Her parents weren’t particularly enthused about some weird vigilante running around town, either. She was glad she wasn’t the only person in Arcadia with that mindset.  
_He’s just doing this for the attention,_ Claire mused, absentmindedly doodling on her classwork while Miss Janeth went on about algebraic formulas she already knew. _It’s gotta be staged._  
This stuff just didn’t exist in Arcadia before Atlas showed up. He _had_ to have brought this to Arcadia himself, just to fight it off and gain all the glory.  
The bell rang, Claire gathered her pencils and homework into her backpack, and marched out the door.  
“Who do you think he is?” Mary asked just outside the locker room while the two of them waited for Darci to change into her gym uniform.  
“Huh?”  
“Atlas.”  
“Why does it matter? He’s an idiot and an attention-seeker, that’s who he is.”  
“Come on, Claire! What if he’s cute?” Mary asked, then immediately gasped- “What if it’s Hank?”  
“It’s not Hank.”  
“You’re no fun,” Mary stated, playfully punching Claire in the shoulder.  
“Do you not like superheroes?” Darci asked, having finished getting ready for class, and the trio made their way towards the gymnasium. Claire dreaded whatever Coach Lawrence had in store for them today. He was, to put it lightly, incredibly tough on his students.  
“Superheroes are cool,” Claire started, “In comic books and movies. But in real life? That guy’s just going to get himself killed.”  
“Have you seen him in action? He GLOWS, Claire! And he can summon a magic sword—”  
“Darci, there’s no way any of that is actually true.”  
“Have you seen the videos?”  
“Of course I’ve seen them, they’re clearly edited.”  
“You think so?”  
“Yeah.”  
And that was the end of _that_ discussion.  
On the bright side, at least gym class that day was more boring than it was difficult. As it turned out, Coach Lawrence was testing everyone on how fast they could run a mile- so there was a lot of just waiting around for people to finish.  
When the boys ran, Claire sat on the bleachers and noted that at the very front of the pack, Steve seemed to be trying to get Jim to race him, but Jim, being the quiet and modest guy that he was, didn’t seem all that in agreement about the whole thing. Nonetheless, Jim’s natural pace kept him neck-to-neck with Steve, and they were essentially racing each other whether or not Jim actually wanted to.  
The poor guy. Claire didn’t know him all that well, but he seemed really sweet and it was a shame Steve picked on him so much.  
Jim ended up “winning,” much to Steve’s chagrin. A few threats were exchanged. A rematch, a locker-stuffing, a scheduling for an after-school beatdown. The interesting thing about Jim was, despite how much Steve picked on him, he didn’t ever appear particularly intimidated by the guy.  
When the girls ran, Claire did just enough to get a good grade- a score that was a little bit faster than her last test. With her parents carefully monitoring her GPA and her desire to go to a nice college someday, over time she’d picked up a few skills on exactly how little (or how much) effort she could put into certain things and still keep her straight A’s.  
Darci and Mary walked about half of the mile, chatting with each other. The other half, they ran, because Coach Lawrence started yelling about how he wanted all of his students to be made of iron.  
When the bell rang at the end of the day and everyone was rushing to get out of the weird liminal space that was Arcadia Oaks High, she was startled by someone running up behind her and grabbing her by the shoulders. She swung around, fully prepared to throw a few punches--  
But it was just Mary, of course, and she was laughing.  
“Oh, I really had you that time,” she giggled, wiping a single tear from her eye, “You looked like you were just about ready to commit a murder, girl!”  
“Why’d you do that?”  
“Idunno, I thought it would be fun! And I was right!”  
Claire chuckled.  
“Anyways,” Mary continued, “Wanna go grab some ice cream? The guy who runs that taco truck just started up an ice cream shop down the street.”  
Claire swore that taco guy was everywhere.  
When Claire didn’t respond right away, Mary frowned. “Come on, Claire, you need to take some time for yourself every once in a while!”  
“Sure,” Claire said with a shrug, “I just have to be home by 5. My parents have some big meeting or something tonight, so I gotta keep an eye on Enrique.”  
“Of course!”  
“What about Darci?”  
“She’s gotta get ready for that date, remember?” Mary said with a grin, “with that short guy who was obsessed with the whole mole mascot thing.”  
“Oh, uh—Colby?”  
“I thought it was Woby.”  
“That doesn’t even sound like a real name.”  
“Y’know,” Mary said, “I guess if our BFF is gonna start dating this dude, we should probably figure out what his name _actually_ is.”  
They both laughed as they walked from school over to the ice cream shop. They could have called an uber or something, probably, but with the newfound warmth of springtime, the two of them deemed it more worthwhile to walk there than get in some stranger’s car.  
The ice cream place was nice enough, notably selling uncommon ice cream flavors. Blue raspberry, mango, cotton candy, things like that. Vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry weren’t on the menu. Probably because the “weird” flavors would catch more customers’ attention.  
She ordered a cone with cherry flavored ice cream. Mary got toasted marshmallow with extra sprinkles.  
Since it was nice enough to walk there, it was definitely nice enough to sit outside, so Claire and Mary made their way over to the park and flopped down on a bench.  
Mary took a photo of her ice cream and, Claire guessed, probably posted it on her twitter.  
“Miss Janeth wants me to start tutoring someone who’s close to failing,” Claire said with a sigh. “She didn’t say who.”  
“And you don’t want to?”  
“Not really.”  
“Just tell her no! You,” Mary said, her mouth full of ice cream, pointing a finger into Claire’s chest, “need to take a year-long nap.”  
“Oh, don’t be dramatic,” Claire chuckled.  
“I don’t know how you do it! Good grades, more extracurricular commitments than I can count on one hand—”  
Claire shrugged. “It’s not that impressive.”  
“That’s a load of bull—”  
Mary was cut off by a loud crash as Atlas made a sudden appearance. And by sudden appearance, that meant ‘being thrown like a ragdoll directly into the roof of the nearby gazebo, knocking loose a few of the shingles and damaging one of the support beams.’ If there was anything this superhero could do exceptionally well, he could cause a ton of property damage and get away with it.  
_Luckily,_ Claire thought, _those old people weren’t playing chess there today._  
Heart pounding, Claire grabbed Mary by the arm (who, of course, had whipped out her phone to film… whatever was happening), and yanked her off the bench and behind a nearby bush to hide. Through a gap in the leaves, she watched Atlas fight. She didn’t care much about him when she heard about him on the news, or when people talked about him, but now she was, admittedly, a little curious. Mary, at some point, decided to duck down further behind the bush and stop filming. 

Claire learned 3 valuable things that afternoon.  
One: Atlas CAN summon a magic sword out of nowhere.  
Two: Atlas had the body composition of a wet noodle.  
Three: Ice cream, if left uneaten, will melt all over your hand.

Okay, no, but _seriously_, he was like a half-cooked piece of spaghetti. Flimsy enough that he could wiggle out of tough situations, but brittle enough that he could probably be snapped clean in half without much effort at all. The videos she’d seen, she hadn’t paid particularly close attention to—and even if she had, most of them were blurry or shaky enough that it was hard to get a clear sense of what Atlas looked like. But here, right in front of her, was easily the most _killable_ looking superhero in the history of all superheroes. The villains that he fights must not take him very seriously.  
The villain, or, whoever, that Atlas was currently fighting had to be easily three or four times Atlas’s size. He was massive, with ashy and almost-gray skin, and carried two swords, the scabbards slung across his back in an X formation.  
_Which begs another question,_ Claire absently thought, ducking down a little lower next to Mary behind the bush, _how old is Atlas?_  
The big dude yelled something about killing Atlas so he could get a gemstone, then threw Atlas straight into the bench she and Mary had just been sitting in. The bench toppled over, and Atlas rolled a good couple more feet before gaining his bearings. His face looked all scraped up, and she couldn’t help but wonder what condition the rest of him was in.  
“Claire,” Mary whispered, “We need to go.”  
“Yeah,” Claire said softly, still staring at the superhero as he got up off the ground. He must have sensed her gaze, because suddenly his eyes met hers. He looked startled to see her there, and waved his hand in a gesture that clearly said “get out of here,” then quickly tore his gaze back to the issue at hand.  
“Claire”, Mary repeated, tugging on her arm.  
“Yeah, yeah, okay. Coming.”  
It wasn’t until when her and Mary got far enough away that she noticed the liquid ice cream all over her clothes, the empty cone. She looked like a disaster. Thankfully, Mary didn’t say anything about it, simply opting to walk with Claire back home.  
When they got to Mary’s house, Claire stood on the sidewalk for a moment to make sure Mary got inside before continuing on her way. Not like it mattered too much, because she lived right down the street from Claire, so if she got locked out or anything she could always just run and catch up to her.  
Claire got to her own house right at five, opening the door to see her mother and father standing there ready to give her a stern talk about being late.  
“Where have you been?” Her father asked, frowning at the fact that she was, to reiterate, drenched in what used to be cherry ice cream. Luckily, it wasn’t quite dark enough to look like blood. Imagine explaining that kind of thing to anyone.  
“I went to get ice cream with Mary. Atlas had some sort of fight, and we wanted to watch.”  
“Claire,” her mother piped in, “You should steer clear of that guy. It’s dangerous.”  
“It won’t happen again, sorry.”  
Claire went upstairs and changed into clothes that _weren’t_ ruined. She took a moment to appraise the reddish stains on her old shirt, then tossed it straight into the garbage.  
Between playing with her little brother, changing his diaper, and doing her homework, she kept a close eye on her phone. Specifically, news websites, #Atlas on twitter, and that new blog that was run by Colby-Woby.  
The blog, she realized, wouldn’t update until much later, because the guy was spending time with Darci right now. Mary’s video, of course, went viral pretty much instantly, but that wasn’t new to her. She wanted to know what happened after she left. If the hero was brutally killed or not.  
Luckily, it didn’t take long for some articles to go up online. Interviews, eyewitness reports, a few more poorly-taken videos.  
Claire opened up an interview with Atlas himself. She wondered how he had time to sit down and do these kinds of things after each battle. She then wondered, if he did the interviews voluntarily, or if the reporters overwhelmed him with questions afterwards and he couldn’t escape until he answered them all. It was probably the latter.  
According to the article, it wasn’t much of a battle and more of a chase, as Atlas was just trying to get away from this villain. Apparently a few cars were _picked up and thrown._ She was angry, at first, because the hero was so selfish for just wanting to save his own skin and _why did everyone like him_—but then it hit her. He’d only been around for a couple of months, most of which were spent fighting smaller enemies. Things that were nuisances, but not necessarily huge threats.  
This guy is still learning how to fight. This guy was _terrified._  
_“I survived, so I count that as a win,”_ Atlas had said.  
_“Can you elaborate on that?”_ the reporter questioned, and though it was transcribed to text, Claire could imagine the reporter shoving a microphone into the guy’s face. Claire wondered what his voice sounded like.  
Wait, why did she care about something like that?  
_“Bular,”_ Atlas had said, _“Wants the source of my powers. Something about opening a portal. By, well, not dying, I put off the whole… portal-opening thing, for at least a little longer.” _  
“But this Bular guy, he’s still out there?”  
“Yeah.”  



	3. The Interview

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Toby Domzalski takes on the vital role of Alya from Miraculous Ladybug.

Toby Domzalski was Atlas’s self-proclaimed #1 fan.  
Ever since Atlas’s appearance, Toby had gone to the ends of the earth to find out as much as he could about the guy. It was just so cool! A superhero in Arcadia! On a whim one afternoon, he started up a blog on Tumblr, nothing particularly special, cataloguing everything he knew about Atlas. “Arcadia’s Atlas,” he titled the blog. Double-A, for short.  
He wasn’t Mary, of course, who was by all means a social media pro, but he was pretty proud and excited about the blog. Jimbo seemed a little less enthused about it, but supported his endeavors nonetheless, as any good best friend would do. Jim, actually, seemed pretty indifferent about the whole superhero thing.  
Toby’s blog, to his own surprise, blew up in popularity. Double-A was soon known to have the quickest intel on anything happening in town. And the best part of becoming the owner of a popular social media account like this? He had the opportunity, and a good excuse, to be on the front lines of ALL of Atlas’s battles.  
The most intriguing thing that he noticed during the past few months, though, was how Atlas was visibly more at ease with Toby than he was with any other news reporter or journalist. Atlas didn’t really like being swarmed by people- it was overwhelming, for sure. But with Toby, things seemed to be different, somehow. Toby wasn’t sure what it was, but him and Atlas just kinda clicked, as if they’d known each other their whole lives or something.  
But they didn’t know each other, that would be ridiculous. The only person he’d known long enough to be able to claim something like that was Jim.  
Needless to say, as happy as Toby was to finally score a date with Darci, he was a little, just a liiiiittle, disappointed that he missed a confrontation with one of the bigger villains.  
His date went incredibly well, though, so he couldn’t complain. It was dinner, nothing too special or over-the-top, but he got a chance to get to know the woman under the mole mascot costume a little bit better. And she was just as fun and goofy as he was, so they hit it off pretty much immediately.  
_Next week,_ Toby mused, _I’ll ask Darci to go see Gun Robot 4 with me._  
Presently, Toby sat in his bedroom, typing away on his phone as he threw together a quick post for Double-A. It wasn’t nearly as in-depth as any of his other posts, given that he wasn’t there on the scene, but he dug up as much research as he possibly could and pieced together what other articles had mentioned. He linked a few clips of videos from Mary’s twitter and called it a day.  
Sometime soon, he’d try to set up a private interview with Atlas. None of that stressful post-battle questioning, but a genuine, heart-to-heart conversation.  
A heart-to-heart conversation that was recorded and later transcribed onto a public blog for all of Arcadia to see.  
Toby paused. He opened up a new post draft. He typed one sentence- short, succinct, to-the-point.  


_“If you could ask Atlas any one question, what would you ask him?”_  


He posted it. It was a great way to engage with the people who followed the blog, while also not having to put forth any effort when it came to the whole “coming up with interview questions” thing. Of course, that is to say, Toby had _plenty_ of his own questions he’d love to ask Atlas.  
Toby set his phone down and glanced out his window, across the street to Jim’s house. The sun was down, usually at this time Jim was sitting at his desk working on homework. Toby would text Jim and tell him to look out the window, and the two of them would then spend the better part of an hour making silly faces at each other. It was a pretty good routine. Except tonight, Toby noticed, Jim’s bedroom light was on, but he wasn’t there. And he wasn’t downstairs, either, because he could see in through the downstairs windows- Dr. L was downstairs watching TV, but there was no sign of Jim. Maybe he was just in the bathroom or something. The call of nature waits for no man.  
But, five minutes later, when Toby looked again, Jim still wasn’t there. Ten minutes, fifteen. Toby gave up- he was probably studying at the library, or out on a walk. Or maybe he was just really constipated.  
Ew.  
Toby glanced at his TV- he’d love to go for a round of Go-Go Sushi right about now, but he realized he wasn’t going to be able to book that interview with Atlas if he didn’t seek him out. And, since Atlas usually did a quick patrol of Arcadia every evening, Toby figured there’d be a good chance he’d run into the superhero. So, he went on a walk.  
Just as he thought, he did bump into the black-and-blue clad hero. Not _literally_ bump into him, because that would be embarrassing. Metaphorically. Toby _absolutely_ didn’t walk face-first into a particularly startled Atlas because he wasn’t paying attention to where he was going. That situation was _entirely_ theoretical.  
Toby noticed the cut across Atlas’s cheek. It was still bleeding a little- he probably just finished clean-up duty from the confrontation earlier, and didn’t have the time to clean himself up.  
“You’re out late,” Atlas remarked, and Toby took notice of the way the hero’s voice cracked as he took a second to find that “classic-superhero-I’m-Trying-To-Disguise-My-Voice” voice.  
“I was looking for you, actually,” Toby said, standing a little straighter.  
“You—you were?” Atlas lifted an eyebrow.  
“Yeah! I was, well, it’s totally okay if you say no, but I was wondering if you’d be willing to sit down for an interview for my blog.”  
Atlas paused. A few seconds passed. Toby braced himself for rejection.  
“Sure,” Atlas said casually, shrugging. “When and where?”  
“How about tomorrow at noon… uh…” Toby paused. Where could they meet that would be quiet? Anywhere Atlas went, he’d draw attention. “how about, like, in my backyard?”  
Atlas chuckled. “Give me your address, and I’ll be there.”  
Toby gave Atlas his address, and Atlas hurried along on his way, likely to finish up his patrol for the evening. Satisfied, Toby walked home. He wondered if anybody sent in any questions. If not, it wasn’t that big of a deal, but it would be more fun with some audience input.  
When he got back home, he checked his phone to find that he had way more responses than he entirely knew what to do with. Luckily, there were a lot of repeat questions. Toby took out a notepad and jotted down a list of everything he was going to ask Atlas.  


The next day was a Saturday, so Toby slept in until ten, made himself a big stack of pancakes for breakfast, then set to work on getting ready for his interview with Atlas. Hopefully Nana wouldn’t mind that he’d be hanging out with a superhero in the backyard.  
Atlas, turns out, wasn’t the most punctual guy in the world. Not that Toby minded waiting, really, because it would be worth it, but Atlas ended up dropping into Toby’s backyard from a tree at around 12:30.  
“Sorry I’m late,” he said sheepishly, “something came up.”  
“Oh, don’t worry about it!” Toby replied, pulling out his phone and opening up his voice recorder app and hitting record. Atlas sat down in the grass just across from him.  
“So Atlas,” Toby began, “Uh, first off, are you familiar with _Arcadia’s Atlas_?”  
“Yeah,” Atlas said, “I keep an eye on it from time to time.”  
“Oh, really??” Toby grinned. He figured Atlas wouldn’t keep tabs on a blog about his own whereabouts, given that, well, it was him. “So, yesterday I asked the followers to send me some questions they had for you. And today, we’re gonna answer them.”  
Atlas nodded. He seemed a little hesitant, so Toby added, “If there’s anything you don’t want to answer, let me know and we’ll move onto a different one.”  
“Okay.”  
“Question one.” Toby took a deep, dramatic breath. “How’d you find out you had superpowers?”  
“I, uh, this is going to sound kinda dumb, but I found a… a rock. A weird, glowing rock. A weird, glowing rock that called to me, like, telepathically?”  
“You’re kidding.”  
“I’m not! Anyways, uh, yeah. That’s how I became… this.”  
“Do you have that rock with you? I actually really love studying minerals—”  
“I don’t. It, like, disappeared once I accepted its powers. Bular wanted to kill me, because apparently the only way to get the rock back is… death?”  
“Youch.”  
“Yeah.”  
“So who’s Bular? That’s kind of a weird name.”  
“If I were to guess, it’s gotta be a fake name, like how everyone calls me Atlas,” he said, “But he’s a supervillain. Super-strength is his whole thing, I think. He threw a truck at me. But he’s working under someone else, someone I don’t know.”  
“Oof. Are you… okay? After the whole truck thing?”  
“Yeah,” Atlas sighed. “A little banged up, but given the situation, it could have been a lot worse.”  
“Alright, question two on my list. This one was a popular question.” Toby glanced down at his notepad. “You single?”  
Atlas laughed. It took him a minute to regain his bearings. “Yeah,” he said, “I am. But, uh, not _available._ I kinda… uh, like someone.”  
“Oooooh!” Toby clapped his hands excitedly. “Who is it? Spill! Gimme those juicy details!”  
“No,” Atlas said bluntly, and Toby froze. He was worried he’d crossed a into an uncomfortable territory, but Atlas was still smiling. “That’d give me away.”  
“Okay, so that means question three is gonna be a no-go,” Toby said.  
“What’s question three?”  
“Who are you?”  
“You were right, definitely a no-go.”  
“Okay, so how about I change the question up a little. How come you don’t tell anybody who you are?”  
“If I did, I could put them in danger, and I could put myself in danger. I like being a normal person outside of the mask, y’know?”  
“Makes sense. Question four, then: What’s your favorite thing you’ve done since becoming a superhero?”

Overall, the interview was a massive success. It continued for the better part of an hour, and Toby had plenty of fresh content to post on his blog- but not all at once, of course. He had to keep the suspense up. The _mystery._ So, over the course of the weekend, Toby typed out the recording and slowly posted answers to individual questions.  
Maybe next time, he’d do a video interview. But he figured that could wait a while.  



	4. Who Is He?

His eyes were so _blue._  
As blue as the midday sky- which was fitting, given that he wielded a sword made out of pure daylight. At least, that’s what he said during an interview with Toby (as Darci called him when she told Claire about The Date). She wondered how credible Atlas was, if he was telling the truth or if he was just spewing bullshit to make him sound cool.  
Though Claire didn’t care much for this superhero nonsense, but she had to admit it was pretty awesome that Toby was able to score an interview with, well, a local celebrity. That seemed like it would be a seriously difficult feat to accomplish.  
Atlas’s eyes had sparkled in the soft evening light. The setting sun illuminated his face that made his skin practically glow, though it was his _suit_ that glowed, not his body itself. He looked soft, gentle, like he’d never hurt a fly, but simultaneously was a natural fighter and held his ground remarkably well. Claire was able to read him like a book. Defensive. Confident. Protective. Very, very afraid.  
The details of the battle (at least, that Claire had witnessed) had mostly vanished from her brain- it all happened so quickly, after all- but in exchange, that moment when she locked eyes with Atlas was pretty much burned into the back of her eyelids.  
What Clare wouldn’t do to look into those eyes when he wasn’t in danger…  
He had been a short distance away, but she figured he was about her height, if not slightly taller. That jet black hair and sharp jaw looked vaguely familiar to her, but with Atlas’s face partially obscured by the mask around his eyes, she couldn’t quite place where she’d seen him before. Was he someone she knew? What were the chances? Was he a classmate, or just some stranger she saw once at a grocery store? Why was one single band of magical fabric over his face just enough to keep her from figuring this out?  
This was a mystery she suddenly really, _really_ wanted to solve.  
Claire had been lurking on _Arcadia’s Atlas_ like a hawk as soon as the answers to Toby’s interview started getting posted. She hadn’t sent any questions in, but she kept a tab of the blog open on her laptop at all times nonetheless. She refreshed the page constantly, waiting, impatient.  
Ugh. Why did she _care_ so much??? What did this _matter?_ This wasn’t a poorly-written romcom. She wasn’t so shallow that her opinion on Atlas would change just because she made eye contact with a boy once and saw him summon his magic daylight weapon.  
Atlas was stupid. Atlas was an attention-seeker. Atlas was most likely going to die in, like, a week.

“So how’d it go?” Claire faintly heard, on the other end of the classroom by the window, Jim whisper to Toby. She snapped to attention, realizing she’d totally zoned out in the middle of Mr. Strickler’s lecture on the Peloponnesian War.  
Mr. Strickler, she remembered reading on _Arcadia’s Atlas_ at some point the other night, was the one who coined the name “Atlas” for the superhero.  
Claire wasn’t entirely sure, but didn’t superheroes usually pick out names for themselves? It was intriguing that he was given that name by some random high school history teacher.  
“What, the date? Or the interview?” Toby whispered back to Jim. Claire watched the two of them in her periphery.  
“The interview,” Jim whispered, scooting his desk a tiny bit closer to Toby’s. “but, uh, I guess both.”  
“It went well. Atlas showed up a little late,” Toby said, “Turns out he’s just like you. Never quite on time for things.”  
Jim snorted. “Oh, come on, Tobes—”  
“Might I remind you,” Toby said, playfully poking a finger into Jim’s shoulder, “you showed up 30 minutes late for math this morning. Miss Janeth looked like she was gonna be the next supervillain.”  
“I fell off my bike!”  
“Yeah, and that takes 30 minutes.”  
“I had to go to the clinic.”  
“Toby and Jim,” Mr. Strickler cut in, deciding he’d had enough of their side-conversation, “Care to share your intriguing discussion about _world history_ with the class?”  
“No, sir,” Toby said, and the rest of the class laughed at them. Steve threw a wadded up worksheet at the back of Jim’s head.  
Claire hadn’t noticed it at first because she didn’t really ever look in Jim’s direction, but Jim had a band-aid on his cheek. Probably from falling off his bike. Atlas had a scratch on his face in the same spot… what a funny coincidence.  
Mr. Strickler continued his lecture. And when the bell rang, he made one of his cheesy history-related jokes, and everyone funneled out of the classroom.  
During their lunch period, Darci invited Toby to sit with her at the table, because he was sitting all alone.

“Listen to this! _Breaking news,_” Mary read off her phone just as Toby sat down, “Villain activity at the museum, Atlas on scene.”  
“Aw,” Toby said, “I’m missing it!”  
“It’s impossible for anyone to make it to every single one of those fights,” Darci said, “They happen so randomly. I don’t know how you’ve seen as many as you have.”  
“I guess it’s just luck,” Toby said with a shrug and a bright smile. “I’ll make it to the next one.”  
“I’d be careful,” Claire said, “It seems like whenever Atlas is out, it’s extremely dangerous. You could get yourself hurt.”  
“Does the article say anything else?” Darci asked Mary.  
“Atlas pulled the fire alarm to evacuate the museum,” She said, then paused for a few seconds, skimming through the text. “Atlas last seen escaping the museum and heading towards a nearby neighborhood, wounded.”  
“I hope he’s okay,” Darci said.  
_Atlas is definitely going to get himself killed over all this nonsense._  
“You don’t know that,” Toby commented. “He’d pretty good at what he does.”  
“Oh, oops,” Claire said, “Did I say that out loud?”  
“You’ll come around,” Mary said. “I saw the way you were staring at him. In no time, you’ll be just as obsessed with him as everyone else.”  
“She already is obsessed,” Darci laughed, “Just in a different way than everyone else.”  
Claire sighed and glanced around the cafeteria.  
“Don’t you usually sit with Jim?” Claire said, deciding to change the subject.  
“Yeah,” Toby responded. “Idunno where he is, though. He’s been kinda flighty recently.”

The bell rang. Jim, Claire noted, didn’t show up to any classes for the rest of the day. She didn’t know Jim very well, but she could tell something weird was going on. And she was going to get to the bottom of it.  


Who are you, Jim Lake?


	5. The Museum

Stealthily, after escaping from Bular the other night, Jim had followed the guy back to his hideout. He kept to the rooftops, hid in the shadows, and even went as far as to disengage his Atlas suit to keep himself from glowing too much.  
He had tracked Bular back to the museum.

_The museum was an odd place for a villain hideout,_ Jim thought to himself instead of paying attention in Mr. Strickler’s class. After Mr. Strickler got after him for talking to Toby, he opted to stare out the window, too distracted to properly pay attention to the lecture. _ but that made it pretty inconspicuous, huh. _  
Mr. Strickler kept him after class for a few minutes.  
“You’ve been distracted recently,” he said. “I worry that if you don’t work that out, your grades may start to slip.”  
“Sorry,” Jim mumbled. “Just got a lot going on right now. It won’t happen again.”  
“It’s due time I had another conversation with your mother,” Mr. Strickler commented, fiddling with that pen he always had in his hands. Jim groaned. He knew ‘conversation’ meant ‘date’ and, honestly, it was incredibly awkward and, frankly, horrible, that his history teacher was dating his mother. So, instead of gratifying Mr. Strickler with a response, he gathered his backpack and walked out of the room.  
Jim decided, instead of going to lunch, he’d sneak out of school and go investigate. At a time like that, he’d blend right in with the rest of the museum-goers, which would make it a perfect time for some reconnaissance.  
He snuck out of the school building and grabbed his bike, and made his way to the museum. It was crowded, which Jim was both thankful for and anxious about. If something went wrong, more people could get hurt, but they also provided more cover. He was less likely to be singled out.  
The museum, naturally, seemed to carry no signs of villainous activity. It was just full of boring pottery and old… stuff. Y’know. Museum things. Jim, a bit disappointed, figured he should probably head back and catch the tail end of the lunch period—but on his way out, he noticed a blocked off area. A new exhibit, still in production, yet to be allowed public access.  
What were the chances anything was back there? The rest of the museum was a bust, but a nagging feeling in his gut told him that maybe, maybe, this might be it.  
He pulled back the curtain blocking the area and peeked inside. It was dark, and there was something large in the center of the room, but it was covered by a tarp. He’d have to get in closer—  
“Excuse me,” Ms. Nomura’s voice rang out, and Jim froze. “That area’s off limits.”  
“Sorry,” Jim said, “I was just curious.”  
“Shouldn’t you be in school right now?” She pressed.  
“Yeah,” he shrugged casually. “But I’m on my lunch period, and I just _love_ history.”  
She smiled and gave him a pat on the shoulder before walking into the blocked-off area. Drat. He’d have to find another way in.  
Jim slipped into the bathroom and weighed his options. One: he could suit up and run in there guns-blazing. Bad idea. Two: He could suit up and sneak in. And Three, he could leave and come back later. After hours, perhaps.  
All of this risked him getting caught, or worse, him not finding anything particularly useful. It could be entirely a waste of time. Jim sighed, ducking into a bathroom stall, and decided he’d roll with option two. He transformed into Atlas with a flash of vivid blue light and crossed his fingers nobody was in any of the adjacent stalls.  
Okay, great. So now Atlas was, essentially, trapped in the bathroom stall. He peeked under the gap between the stalls and the floor: nobody else was there, thank Merlin, but he had to figure out how in the world he was going to get from the bathroom to the blocked off space without the entire universe being aware of his presence.  
He couldn’t just walk out of the bathroom. He’d be swarmed by people in an instant, and his entire plan of being stealthy would go down the drain.  
Atlas looked upwards. Above him, a ventilation system pumped cool air into the room. _ Gotcha. _ He climbed up the walls of the stall and carefully slid the vent off the ceiling, then climbed in. Just as he vanished into the ceilings above, someone walked into the bathroom. Perfect timing.  
Now, all he had to do was figure out which direction the room in question was. 

It took a little bit of wandering, but he managed to find a vent that led straight there.  
“There was a teenager peeking in here earlier,” Ms. Nomura said, and Atlas pressed his face close to the slats in the vent to try to get a better look.  
“A teenager?” Another voice—Mr. Stricker’s—responded. _ Wait, why was Mr. Strickler here? He was just in class! _  
“He should be in school right now.” Ms. Nomura continued, “Which worries me.”  
_ Yeah, a fair point._ Jim had just been in class, so Atlas supposed it wasn’t too big of a stretch for Strickler to be here, too.  
“What did he look like?” Mr. Stricker asked. “We can’t let this operation be compromised.”  
Bingo.  
“Average height, black hair, blue jacket.”  
“Jim Lake.”  
“Do you know all of your students based off of vague descriptions?”  
“His mother and I are close, and he’s one of my favorite students, so I see him a lot. He wears the same thing every day.”  
Atlas would, under any other circumstance, be flattered to know he was Mr. Strickler’s favorite—he liked talking to his history teacher. But here, in the museum, with the context of an _ operation _ that might be _compromised_?  
Was Mr. Strickler one of the bad guys? Atlas quietly and carefully unlatched the vent, climbing down onto a second-story platform that spanned the perimeter of the room. He needed to get a closer look.  
“I must take my leave,” Mr. Strickler said. “Keep an eye out for any more… security breaches.”

Just after Strickler left the room, Jim tried to sneak out the way he came, because it was due time he got back to school as well. But, luck was against him: his foot hit a creaky board, alerting Ms. Nomura of his presence instantly.  
“You just _love_ history, huh?” Ms. Nomura growled up at him from the ground floor. Crap, she figured out who he was pretty quickly. He’d been a bit careless in his reconnaissance, and Ms. Nomura wasn’t an idiot. This was a problem. Especially since if Ms. Nomura knew, and she was working with Mr. Strickler, then Mr. Strickler would know who he is, too.  
He didn’t have a lot of time to reflect on his mistake, because within an instant, Ms. Nomura was gone, replaced by a tall, pink monster lady with two glowing red sickles.  
_Shape-shifting powers,_ he thought to himself. _Interesting._ He summoned his sword and jumped down from the balcony, hoping to land a quick blow, but his sword met her sickles and she kicked him hard enough to send him flying across the room. His back slammed against the wall and his vision swam.  
When he came back to his senses, Nomura was standing over him, her sickles raised in the air, just about to slam them down on him. Atlas rolled out of the way and got back up on his feet. He ran out of the room and into the main hallway of the museum, ignoring the shocked gasps of museumgoers, and made a beeline for the fire alarm. Maybe it wasn’t the best to pull the fire alarm when there wasn’t a fire, but it would be the most efficient way to get everybody out of the building.  
The alarm resonated through the museum, and people immediately funneled towards the exit. Good. Except, of course, there were always a few stragglers, those who knew it wasn’t a fire and were brave enough to stay on the scene and film it from a distance.  
It gave Tobes content to post on his blog. He couldn’t blame them, people were naturally curious. He’d just have to keep the fight a safe distance away from them.

“The good thing about killing you here,” Nomura jeered, approaching him from behind, “Is that I won’t have to drag your body very far.”


	6. Not Quite a Hospital

Barbara had the day off from work, so she spent the day tidying up the house and attempting to cook lunch for herself. She knew Jim had cooked lunch for her and left it in the fridge, but every once in a while she figured she’d try her hand at cooking. Jim made it look easy.  
So, ultimately, when her omelet burned, she dug the meatloaf Jim made out of the fridge and stuck it in the microwave.  
_(“Try to reheat it in an oven instead of nuking it,” Jim had said. “it kills the flavor.”)_  
Barbara took the meatloaf out of the microwave, still cold, and turned on the oven to preheat.  
The doorbell rang. Barbara wondered if it was Walter- he’d been known to show up unannounced with a bottle of wine every once in a while. Walt Strickler was incredibly easy to talk to, empathetic and caring. She’d recently taken to venting about her problems with Jim lately. He was a great listener, and gave her good advice.  
But then again, why would it be Walter? It was just barely past 1pm: He was at work right now. 

When Barbara opened the door, she was met with something completely unexpected. Atlas, Arcadia’s new superhero, was hunched over, one hand braced against the doorframe, another hand trying to stop a nasty looking gash in his side from bleeding.  
“I need your help.”  
Barbara, stunned, quickly pulled him inside.  
“You need to go to the hospital.”  
“Nope. Can’t do that.”  
_Stubborn._  
“Why not?”  
“Can’t have anyone, especially not a public institution like the hospital, figure out who I am.”  
“Why not go as your civilian self?” Barbara guided him over to the couch, threw a blanket overtop of the seat to keep the blood off it, then sat him down. He gritted his teeth.  
“It’d be a funny coincidence,” Atlas deadpanned, “to have someone show up at the hospital with the same exact same wound as a superhero, which was—by the way—broadcasted live on public television.”  
He had a good point, she supposed. She ran upstairs to the bathroom and grabbed her first-aid kit, then rushed back downstairs to treat the nasty looking wound as quickly as she could. When she returned, he was holding part of the blanket she’d laid out tightly against his side. He seemed to know the drill: apply pressure to slow the bleeding. A living room blanket wasn’t the most sterile of things to press up against an open wound, though.  
“I’m going to have to clean your wound,” she said, “It’ll sting a bit.”  
“That’s okay. Do what you have to.”  
She didn't like the way he said that- he was clearly too young to have to deal with any of this. She tried to be as gentle as she could. Still, it was visibly painful for him.

“How old are you, Atlas?” She asked as she grabbed sutures and began working on closing up the gash.  
“Sixteen,” He replied.  
She had been guessing more around the nineteen, twenty range. But sixteen? _Her son_ was sixteen. Right now, Atlas should be worrying about high school, not running around saving Arcadia from who-knows-what.  
She finished stitching the superhero up in silence. She applied bandages overtop of it all.  
“I know you’ll probably just end up ignoring this, given your… profession,” Barbara said to him as he stood up. “But please try to avoid any rigorous activity for as long as you can. Let it heal.”  
“I’ll try my best.”  
“And if it shows any signs of infection, I expect you to come straight back here—”  
“Yes, ma’am.” It almost sounded like he was about to say 'Mom.' She wondered if he had a family who worried about him while he was out saving Arcadia. She wondered if his family even knew.  
“Do you have any other injuries?”  
“No.” Barbara doubted that was entirely true.  
Atlas hurried out the door. Barbara washed the blood off her hands and put the meatloaf in the oven.   
_ Why had Atlas come to me, of all people? _ she thought. _Does he not trust any other doctor? _

When her son got home that afternoon, he had bruises on his jaw to accompany the scrape on his cheek from the other day. He was walking stiffly, like he was in pain but was trying his best to hide it. She was, frankly, worried out of her mind for him. Was he going around picking fights at school? Or were people picking fights with him? Was he being bullied? Why did he sneak out sometimes, re-entering the house through his bedroom window?  
And then, why would he act like he’d been home all along, as if she didn’t notice?  
He was much more argumentative and never had particularly good excuses (“I was studying at the library” was a common one, but the library was almost always closed when he tried to use that one). He said he fell off his bike when he got the scratch, and Barbara didn’t know whether to believe him or not.  
“Where’d those bruises come from?” She asked sternly when he walked through the door and threw his backpack over the staircase railing.  
“They were from the bike accident,” He said.  
She sighed. She didn’t press any further.  
Jim cooked dinner, and the two ate in complete silence, the tension between them apparent. And then, wordlessly, Jim disappeared into his room, and Barbara figured she probably wouldn’t see him for the rest of the evening.

When Barbara came downstairs the next morning, Jim was making an omelet for her. She grabbed a bowl and filled it with cereal.  
“Sorry, kiddo,” she said flatly. “In a rush.”  
She tried to ignore the hurt expression on his face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been posting chapters daily for a lil while now but school will be starting up on Tuesday so I may not be able to update as frequently after that. Sorry in advance!


	7. Evening Patrol

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think this one's a lil longer than my usual chapters. It was a fun one to write- enjoy!

Claire kept running into Atlas. First, the park when she was with Mary. Then, she bumped into him on her way back from the library one evening while he was on patrol. He walked her home.  
“Just wanted to make sure you get home safe,” he had said. This was the first time he spoke to her: his voice sounded just as vaguely familiar as his appearance—she recognized it, but she couldn’t quite put her finger on it. It frustrated her to no end. “Things have been dangerous lately.”  
“You brought the danger here,” she said matter-of-factly.  
“Wha-- what?” he sounded genuinely baffled.  
“Villains didn’t show up until you did. You’re just doing this for attention.”  
He laughed. Claire stared at him inquisitively. In the fading light, the markings on his suit glowed ever so slightly. It cast a faint blue light on his face.  
“I wish that were the case,” he finally said. They arrived at Claire’s house, and he bid her off with a friendly “Have a nice evening, Claire.”  
How did he know her name?  
Claire pulled out her laptop when she got to her bedroom. Toby posted a video clip of the museum fight on _Arcadia’s Atlas._ It wasn’t his or Mary’s footage, because they’d both been at lunch when the battle happened, and Claire noted that Toby posted a link to the source where the video was originally posted.  
Toby was pretty good at this whole… superhero journalism thing.  
(She’d gotten to know him a little bit better now that he and Darci were dating. He was a big goofball, a dedicated worker, and a loyal boyfriend. He and Darci were perfect for each other—she was happy for her friend.)  
In the video, Pink Monster Lady had nailed Atlas pretty hard in the side with one of her sickles, and she seemed pretty intent on doing even more damage, but Atlas was fast (despite however much pain he was likely in) and distracted her just long enough to get away. It was almost comical, the way he tricked Nomura into killing a nearby goblin, which then prompted an entire swarm of goblins to attack her in revenge. But what were goblins doing at the museum?  
Claire didn’t know where Atlas went after that; she hoped he was okay.  
But there was just so much blood.  
She watched the over and over and over again. She didn’t entirely know why she did. It made her sick.

“I’m gonna find out who Atlas is,” Claire announced the following Monday as she, Mary, Darci and Toby hung out by their lockers before classes started. News spread that Atlas had survived the attack at the museum and was spotted walking down Allen Street one evening. The photos were out of focus and dark, but he seemed alright. That was a huge relief.  
“Wait, wait, back up a sec,” Darci said with a grin, “Is this another one of your ‘I hate Atlas’ things, or are you starting to get a little curious?”  
“I…” Claire paused. “I do hate him.”  
“You’re not a great liar,” Mary commented. Claire rolled her eyes. “What changed?”  
Claire didn’t know how to answer the question.  
“Well,” Toby jumped in, “I’ve been looking for someone to help me mod Double-A. Jimbo wasn’t interested in helping, so if you want to…” He trailed off.  
“I’d love to,” Claire said, all-too-quickly. Mary and Darci exchanged a glance and snickered.  
And so, Claire became “Shadow,” an anonymous moderator on the blog who focused on picking up clues about Atlas’s civilian identity. She didn’t post as much as Toby did, but she popped in every once in a while to drop some of the latest intel and answer some reader questions.  
Most of the time, she just answered audience questions, because she really didn’t… have a lot of particularly great “intel” to “drop.” She’d shared a few conversations with Atlas at this point, and Atlas was pretty good at keeping the things he didn’t want to share to himself. She did, however, know when she hit that line, because he was blunt about it.  
(“Do you go to Arcadia Oaks High?” she’d ask him.  
“I’m not going to answer that,” he’d reply.)

Here’s what she did take note of, though.

1) He was pretty much always injured- bruises, scrapes, that one nasty gash from the museum fight. His walk, though relaxed, was often cautious, like he had injuries he was trying to protect.  
2) He was young. He was, just as she suspected, only slightly taller than her; his voice, though clearly intentionally changed to disguise himself, cracked from time to time.  
3) He had a gentle but confident aura. He wasn’t “Jim Lake Jr. Modest,” but he wasn’t “Steve Palchuk Cocky” either, and  
4) He seemed to enjoy her company quite a bit.

Claire figured these things out because she kept bumping into Atlas during his evening patrols, and soon it became a part of her daily schedule. Wake up, go to school, come home, do homework, go on a walk, meet up with Atlas at what the rest of her classmates deemed “the unclimbable tree” just outside Arcadia Oaks High.  
The Unclimbable Tree was no taller than the rest of the trees on the school’s grounds, but all of its branches were much higher up, leaving no lower handholds to grab. Some kids who had long since graduated had started the challenge: climb The Unclimbable Tree. It was even used in a few Spring King & Queen challenge events, but that was quickly phased out when the teachers realized nobody was going to win.  
Sometimes, Claire wondered what would happen in the event that somebody at school actually managed to perform such a feat.  
Atlas seemed to have no trouble climbing The Unclimbable Tree. In fact, most of the time, when she arrived he was already up there, sitting on that one branch that sat lowest on the tree. And by “lowest,” it was still probably twice as high as she was tall. And every night, when she arrived, he’d swing down upside-down, hanging by his legs from the branch, so his head met just above her level. They’d chat for a little bit, him upside-down, until too much blood rushed to his head and he had to climb down.  
“Good evening,” he said with a charming smile.  
“How do you get up on that tree?” She asked. He dropped down to the ground headfirst, landing on his hands first, and then springing up to his feet once he was fully out of the tree. Today, he didn’t spend as much time lingering in the tree, she noted.  
“Can’t tell you. That’s a trade secret,” he said with a playful wink.  
“Okaaay,” Claire rolled her eyes jokingly. He laughed. He had a nice laugh, a contagious one.  
“Well, I brought you a milkshake,” Claire continued, holding up a 16 ounce Styrofoam cup with a plastic straw. “I hope you like bubblegum flavor. It seemed kinda ridiculous, but _you’re_ kinda ridiculous, so…”  
“You- huh?”  
“I,” Claire took a sip out the milkshake (hey, she was curious what it tasted like). “brought,” she pushed the shake into his hands. “you,” Claire let go of the milkshake, causing Atlas to fumble with it and catch it before it spilled all over the grass. “A milkshake.”  
“You didn’t have to do that,” he said. “You should’ve saved your money.”  
“Oh, come on,” Claire said, punching him lightly in the shoulder. “It was only three dollars.”  
“Uh,” He seemed a little flustered. He stared down at the shake in his hands. She wondered if he wasn’t quite used to people randomly… giving him things. “I… Thank- um, thank you.”  
He drank the milkshake as they walked the streets of Arcadia together. She was a little unsure about the bubblegum-flavored ice cream, especially in a milkshake, but it looked like it was a hit.  
“I hear you’re the new mod for Double-A,” he commented later on that evening, the two of them standing on the bridge over the canal. Atlas leaned his back against the railing casually, but still vigilant. Keeping an eye out for villains, criminals, whatever. He was pretty good at keeping a sharp eye out for danger while still engaging in conversation with Claire. A strong multi-tasker. Noted.  
“Well, it was supposed to be _anonymous_,” She said with a sigh. “How did you—”  
“Maybe I have a secret spy who reports everything to me,” he joked. Claire rolled her eyes. “Or maybe I’m actually a detective and figured it out on my own. Ooooor… maybe I just overheard you and Toby talking about it at school.”  
“So you DO go to Arcadia Oaks High!”  
He slapped a hand over his forehead. Score one for Claire.  
“Are you popular?” Claire asked him. She reached up and smoothed out a stray tuft of his sleek black hair. It was softer than she anticipated.  
“I didn’t realize we were playing Twenty Questions,” Atlas remarked sarcastically. “I would’ve prepared some of my own.”  
“Are you?”  
“Wow, pushy—”  
“Atlas.”  
He shrugged. “I’m average.”  
Claire wasn’t sure what she was expecting. That didn’t narrow it down at all.  
“Do you have many friends?”  
“One.”  
“One? I wouldn’t really call that average, Atlas.”  
A few silent seconds passed. “Two,” He remarked, “if I can count you, but I’m assuming you’re trying to dig at my civilian self, so… yeah. One.”  
“You’re not making stuff up to throw me off, are you?”  
“No,” He said with a sigh. “The only person I’ve lied to is my mom. And only to cover for… this.” He gestured vaguely towards himself.  
“Do I hate you?”  
“I… don’t think so?” He sounded a little insecure. “I hope you don’t.”  
“I hope I don’t, too,” She said, “because that would make things incredibly awkward.”

“My turn at Twenty Questions.”  
“Shoot.”  
“You used to hate me.” He commented. “Well—'Atlas' Me. What changed your mind?”  
“I _met_ you.”  
“Why do you patrol with me every night?”  
“It’s something interesting to do,” She said with a shrug. “Plus, it gives me plenty of material to post on Double-A.”  
He laughed. Surprisingly, he didn’t seem particularly bothered by her turning around and posting about him on such a public platform. She wondered, though, how long that would last, given how she really wanted to know who he was beneath the mask. That was Mod Shadow’s whole game.  
Was she taking advantage of his trust?  
“Why do you want to know who I am?”  
“Because,” Claire said. “I like solving mysteries. And you’re Arcadia’s biggest mystery.”  
“Plus,” she added when he didn’t respond, “I know you, Atlas. You’re brave, you’re selfless, and you’ve got a good heart. Chances are, you don’t put that on as a persona like you put on this ridiculous superhero costume. And that’s someone I want to get to know, inside _and_ outside of the mask.”  
Atlas stared at her. For once, she couldn’t read his expression. She did note, however, that the moonlight lit his face in a way that complimented his features incredibly well. His jaw, long and narrow, his nose… It was a shame his features were partially obscured by a mask.  
And then, she did something without thinking, perhaps a bit rash, a bit risky. But she was caught up in _him_ that she didn’t think things through.  
She kissed him.  
He placed a hand gingerly on her cheek. For someone who runs around fighting all the time, he was incredibly gentle. But then, as quickly as it started, Atlas froze up. His hands found her shoulders, and he pulled back.  
“We can’t do this,” he said.  
Claire sighed.  
“I could be anyone,” he said. “I could be, like, Mr. Strickler.”  
“I think I’d know if you were Mr. Strickler,” She laughed. He tried to smile, but didn’t quite hit the mark.  
“I don’t want to put you in danger. It’s already risky enough that you patrol with me. If people find out you’re associating yourself even closer with me—”  
“I get it.”  
“It… It was nice, though.” He said. He sounded sad.  
“In your interview with Toby, you said you liked someone.”  
“I do.”  
“Is that ‘someone’ me?”  
Atlas didn’t respond. He turned his back to Claire, staring out over the railing and into the canal.

_ Atlas has a strange sense of obligation and nobility to him, _ Claire wrote on Double-A when she got home that evening. _where he won’t let himself do anything that makes him happy. Safety this, safety that. “I don’t want anyone to get hurt,” he’ll say. But then, he turns around, and he gets himself hurt. Most of the time, his hurt comes from the supervillains he fights. But occasionally, he does it to himself. _  
When Toby replied to the post and requested some more details, some specifics, some _superhero drama_, Claire responded with a curt “it doesn’t matter.” 

It was a week before Atlas showed up at their meeting spot again. Claire had waited at the tree every night, hoping for him to show up, only to go home disappointed. He’d likely done his patrol on his own.  
On Friday, she approached the tree to find Atlas sitting on the ground at the base of it. His knees were tucked in close to his chest, his arms around his legs. He was holding something in his hands.  
“I was worried you weren’t going to come back,” Claire said.  
“Uh,” Atlas hesitated. “I got you a milkshake.”  
He sounded like he wasn’t sure what their boundaries were anymore. She sat down on the ground across from him, interlocking her feet around his. He handed her the Styrofoam cup. She took a sip.  
“Blueberry,” she said.  
“I didn’t know what to get you,” He said, “So I panicked and just got the first thing I saw on the menu.”  
“Are we… okay?” She asked. She laid a hand on top of his.  
“I hope so.” His handsome blue eyes met hers. He smiled. “I missed you.”


	8. Hell Week

It was the week before spring break. Teachers were assigning less homework than usual, classmates were disappearing from the classrooms in favor of going on vacation a week early. Jim had hoped that maybe this week he could take things down a couple notches, let his ever-present bruises heal, but that wasn’t the case. If anything, the supervillains that infested Arcadia decided to collectively make things worse. No surprise there.  
On the first night, Atlas missed his patrol with Claire.

It was pouring rain. Atlas was dragged through a puddle on the ground and jarred back to consciousness. He was at the museum—or, more accurately, currently being dragged there on the ground by one Ms. Nomura, who had (last he remembered) hit him in the head with the hilt of her sickle.  
_ “Turns out, we need you to open the portal.”_  
“So why are you trying to kill me?”  
“Not kill. Take.”  
He blinked his bleary eyes and tried to take stock of his surroundings as best he could. His shoulder burned, as who knew how long Nomura had been dragging him through the streets by the arm. He could feel blood on his face, so he figured the pavement scratched him up pretty good. Was it too early to tell his mom he fell off his bike again?  
He heard the creak of a door opening, and suddenly the rain stopped. No, the rain didn’t stop, he was just indoors. His eyes drifted closed again. No, no, he had to stay awake—  
“I have him,” Nomura said. He wasn’t moving anymore, he only barely noticed, but Nomura still had a tight grip on his arm.  
“I must say I’m shocked,” That was Mr. Strickler’s voice. “That you actually managed.”  
“He’s pretty slippery.” A third voice—Bular’s.  
“He’s slippery,” Nomura said, “But he’s still learning how to fight.”  
“He’s not to be underestimated, though,” Mr. Strickler said, “he’s already caused us enough trouble as it is.”  
Atlas forced his eyes to open again. The bright lights in the room burned into his retinas and he grit his teeth. When his eyes adjusted, he realized something: He wasn’t Atlas. He was Jim. He was Jim Lake Jr, with a nasty head wound, surrounded by three villains that all knew who he was and wanted him dead.  
Wait, no, not dead. Not yet, at least.  
Mr. Strickler crouched down beside Jim and smiled condescendingly.  
“It’s a shame,” he said. “I really liked you.”  
Jim kicked Mr. Strickler in the groin. And then, while everyone was distracted by _that_, Jim swept his leg under Nomura’s, knocking her off balance. She let go of his arm, and he quickly stumbled to his feet and summoned Atlas. Summoned his sword.  
Mr. Strickler rose from the ground, having recovered from the kick. Somewhere in his unconscious mind, he wondered what Strickler’s superpowers were. If Bular was super strong, and Nomura was a shape-shifter…  
But then Strickler transformed into a creature similar to Nomura, but green and with a really pretentious looking cape-thing. So that answered that question.  
Atlas must have looked pretty horrified, because Strickler grinned at him and jeered, “Good look for picture day?”  
Strickler charged. Bular, from the other direction, was rushing him as well. In the background, a giant metal structure whirred. _That must be the portal generator,_ Atlas thought. He needed to get out of here. If they needed him to open the portal, he couldn’t be nearby. That would be bad news.  
Atlas quickly dodged between Bular and Strickler as they approached, ran across the room to an open panel on the floor that lead down into the sewers. The sewers, that were, currently flooded with water from the heavy rain. Crap. That was nasty.  
There had to be at least one Chicken Surprise down there. Maybe two. He glanced over his shoulder at the three villains that were currently pursuing him. He didn’t have time to worry about what was in the sewers—he had to keep the portal from opening, and right now the only way he could manage that was to get as far away from it as possible.  
Later, he’d come back and destroy the structure entirely.  
Atlas dove into the water below, immediately swept away by the strong current. Only Bular pursued him: Atlas was relieved to know he wasn’t outnumbered anymore, but wondered why the two shape-shifters hadn’t followed.  
The sewers led to the canal. Atlas swam under the bridge and grabbed onto the metal support structure, heaving himself up. Bular met him there, and the hulking brute of a man’s two swords met Atlas’s daylight blade.  
Atlas didn’t have the strength that Bular had. Bular was at least twice Atlas’s size, and Atlas, still harboring the lasting effects of Nomura’s blow to the head, struggled to keep up. Bular grabbed Atlas and pinned him against a metal beam, squeezing—  
However, as the sun set, Atlas buried his blade deep into Bular’s stomach, and in a burst of light, the man crumped to his knees, then fell into the rushing water below. There was a lot of blood, but Atlas was thankful that not all of it was his own.  
He’d never _killed_ someone before, though. He was too exhausted to consider the repercussions of _that_.

Jim stumbled home. He walked unsteadily through the front door and was instantly greeted by his mom, who looked terrified.  
“Oh, thank God you’re okay,” Barbara said, grabbing Jim and pulling him into a tight hug.  
“I, uh—” Jim stammered, and Barbara led him over to the kitchen table, where the first-aid kit had already been laid out. “Huh?”  
“Do you remember much?” She pulled out a pocket flashlight and quickly flicked it in front of his eyes. “That monster lady dragged you all the way across Arcadia like a ragdoll—”  
“Oh, yeah,” Jim said softly, “I kinda remember.”  
“Atlas was nowhere to be found,” she said. “I was terrified, Jim!”  
She bandaged up the scrapes on his face and gave him an ice pack for the bruise forming on his temple. She told him to go get some rest, so he made his way upstairs and took a quick shower to clean away the sewer water, then went to bed. He didn’t tell his mom about the nasty bruises around his ribs from being squeezed by a man with super-strength. 

On the second day, Jim missed school. His mom wanted to monitor his concussion- a mild one, but she insisted on taking care of him. He was always the one to look after his mother, so it was a nice change of pace.  
Atlas missed evening patrol, because Jim couldn’t bring himself to get out of bed.

On the third day, Jim went back to school. Everyone was talking about Atlas’s success at killing Bular. He wasn’t sure how that news spread, because he was pretty sure he was alone under that bridge.  
Consequently, everyone was talking about _Jim_ too, because of the whole… Nomura thing. He hadn’t been Atlas when he was knocked out.  
“What did she want from you?” Toby asked him. “Did she say?”  
“I think she wanted to lure Atlas,” Jim replied. “She and the others she works with are pretty dead-set on opening that portal.”

Atlas missed his patrol again. He was starting to feel bad, because he’d been ditching Claire, and Claire was no doubt going to start feeling like he was standing her up.  
But tonight, a new villain was in town. Angor Rot, he called himself. He was lanky and covered in gold piercings and jewelry, and had the power to enchant things by carving little stone totems.  
Angor Rot was creepy. He created a golem of mud and grass, sent it to fight Atlas. All the while, the guy lurked in the shade of nearby trees, observing him. Atlas, caught up in pursuing the new villain, didn’t get home until 5:30am the next morning. He slid in through his bedroom window as quietly as he could, dismissed his superhero getup, and laid down.  
His alarm went off at 6.

On the fourth day, Atlas wrote a note for Claire and pinned to The Unclimbable Tree.  
_"Not ditching you, just busy. New villain. Can you patrol for me tonight? -Atlas”_  
Atlas, sleep-deprived and irritable, had to deal with Angor Rot again. He was careless that night. He’d been pursuing the villain through the woods, and stumbled straight into some sort of trap. He couldn’t move, he couldn’t speak: all he could do was watch as Angor Rot said some incantation and drew some sort of symbol on his face.  
“Next time we meet, daylight will be _mine_ to command,” He said, and Atlas didn’t like the sound of that.  
For the second night in a row, Jim only got home minutes before his morning alarm.

On the fifth day, Jim realized he’d made a pretty nasty mistake.  
“Jim,” Senor Uhl called out, snapping him out of his exhausted daze. “I’d like you to write today’s vocabulary words on the board.”  
And so, Jim did just that, he got up, dragging his feet as he walked, and wrote out the list of Spanish words they’d be discussing that day. After he finished, he flopped back down at his desk next to Toby, resting his chin on his hands. He was certain Senor Uhl picked on him because he was the student who was paying the least attention.  
His gaze wandered over to Claire. She had a sheet of paper in her hands. She looked down at the paper, then looked up at the board. Down at the paper, up at the board.  
Jim squinted a little bit, trying to get a better look. It was hard to tell from a few rows away, but Jim quickly realized that in Claire’s hands was the note Atlas had written for her. The note, that was written in Jim’s handwriting. And the Spanish vocabulary on the board… also in Jim’s handwriting. Crap.  
When Senor Uhl’s lecture started, Jim put his head down and fell asleep.

“You look dead, dude,” Toby said to him as they sat down at their lunch table. Claire joined them soon after, followed by Darci. “What gives?”  
“Just, uh, a lot of homework, I guess.”  
“No, don’t give me that,” Toby said knowingly, “Our teachers haven’t assigned any more than they usually do. Spring break’s next week, there’s no tests coming up, and Senor Uhl’s big quarterly project doesn’t start till the week after break.”  
“I, uh—”  
“And, not to mention,” Toby continued, not giving Jim a chance to rattle off another excuse, “You miss classes, you never text back as quickly anymore, and you never seem to be home when I wanna hang out with you.”  
“Sorry.”  
Toby sighed. “I don’t care if you keep secrets from me, dude, everybody has their boundaries. But you’ve got me a little worried.”  
“It’s nothing to worry about.” Jim glanced away from Toby to see Claire, on the other end of their lunch table, not-so-discreetly listening in on their conversation. A fleeting thought crossed his mind—Atlas was a mystery she wanted to solve. How much of the mystery had she already figured out? How close, or how far, was she from finding out it was Jim this whole time?  
Would she be disappointed when she realized it was just Jim and not someone… cooler?  
“—Aaaand you’re spacing out on me, again, dude.”  
“Huh? Oh—Sorry.”  
“Just ask her out already, Jimbo! The dance is next month—”  
Jim clamped a hand over Toby’s mouth.

Atlas didn’t see Angor Rot that night, so he rejoined Claire on patrol. He was glad to spend time with her again, it felt like it had been ages. The last time he’d gone so long without patrolling with her was the week after she had kissed him, when he wasn’t sure where their boundaries were anymore, so he tried to give her—and himself—some space. Some time to think.  
“How’s the whole… new villain thing?” She asked.  
“Awful,” Atlas groaned. “He only shows up at night, which isn’t unheard of for a villain, but—”  
“But you haven’t slept in days.” Was it that obvious?  
“He keeps me out until, like, right before my alarm goes off.”  
“You should go get some rest,” She said, placing a hand on his shoulder. “You fell asleep in Senor Uhl's class. He was _pissed_."  
"I-- What?" Atlas stammered.  
"Nevermind."

Crap. Crap. Crap.

On the sixth day, Jim slept through the entire day. It was Saturday, which meant Spring break was starting. And on the seventh day, things seemed to be back to normal. Or, at least, as normal as it could be: Jim was relieved to have caught up on much-needed sleep. Atlas's daily patrol schedule with Claire fell back into place.

Jim’s mom had Strickler over for dinner that night. When Barbara stepped out of the room, Jim and Strickler carried on a conversation that _sounded_ friendly but was laced with threats. Jim kept a tight grip on his steak knife.


	9. Spring Break

For a while now, Claire had been paying very close attention to her classmates. Their habits, their quirks, their patterns. She observed. A while ago, Atlas let it slip that he attended Arcadia Oaks High, and that piqued her curiosity.  
Specifically, though, she paid attention to Jim, who was another puzzle she wanted to solve: Just like Atlas. But Jim was a _different_ kind of puzzle. It didn’t take much to know that Jim had been acting differently recently. Something weird was going on with him, and she wanted to get to the bottom of it.  
But she wasn’t stupid. When she started connecting the clues, she realized perhaps those two puzzles weren’t as different as she thought.  
Jim only really had one good friend: Toby. When Toby had started sitting at her lunch table to spend time with Darci, Jim followed. “The two of us are a package deal,” Toby had joked one afternoon. So, Jim had the chance to befriend Claire, Darci, and Mary- but most importantly, this opportunity gave Claire a lot more time to really pay attention to him.  
Jim’s patterns and habits were erratic. He’d show up late to classes some days, miss entire periods others. Most other students had habitual lateness or certain classes they’d prefer to ditch, but Jim’s absences made no logical sense.  
Jim was _always_ covered in bruises. He said to Toby one day during lunch that it was because he was just kinda clumsy.  
And the icing on the cake, the one thing that really locked her suspicion down, was the note from Atlas. She wouldn’t have realized any connection if it weren’t for their Spanish teacher, who coincidentally made Jim write on the board the next day. Jim’s and Atlas’s handwriting was identical.  
While at first figuring out Atlas’s civilian identity was a fun little game, she learned it would have severe consequences if that information was public. It could put Jim in danger. Regardless of whether it was actually him or not. Even if she was wrong, and she very well could be: putting Jim under public scrutiny on a blog almost all of Arcadia followed… It could be disastrous for the poor guy.  
But it had to be Jim, right?

_I’m renouncing my position as The Mod Who’s Trying To Figure Out Who Atlas Is, _ Claire wrote on Double-A. _I’ll still be around as a moderator and have plenty of content to share with everyone, but I wanted to make it official that I’m giving up the manhunt, so to speak. There’s a human under that mask, and he deserves a normal life outside of being Atlas._

In separate posts, she uploaded a few photos of Atlas she snuck while they were last patrolling together. A close-up of him, glancing over his shoulder with a smile on his face as he made some sarcastic remark to her. One photo where he had his sword planted in the ground and he was leaning casually against it, another of him staring out at the sun setting over the canal.  
Now that it was spring break, she didn’t have any excuses to keep a close eye on Jim. She’d been watching him closely, now, digging for more signs of a connection between him and Atlas. It almost felt weird, not being around him for the week. She was almost tempted to invite everyone who sat with her at lunch to go see a movie, or something, just so she could see him again.  
_(“Someone’s got eyes for Jim,” Darci taunted a few days ago._  
_“Oh, come on, don’t be ridiculous.” Claire had a crush on Atlas. Not Jim.)_  
But here was the thing: When Claire hinted at the possibility of Atlas being Jim—casually, of course, by offhandedly pointing out that Senor Uhl was mad at him—Atlas had seemed… confused.  
So what if all these signs that were pointing back to Jim were wrong? _Or,_ what if Atlas was just trying to throw Claire off by acting like he didn’t know what she was talking about?  
There were so many variables to this equation. Too many. Her mind reeled, so she grabbed her phone and called Toby.  
“Toby,” Claire said when he picked up the phone only a few seconds later. “I—”  
“Why’d you decide to stop trying to figure out who Atlas was? I saw your post.”  
“I realized something.”  
“Realized what?”  
“How well do you know Atlas?”  
“Not super well. We’ve done some interviews and stuff, but I don’t spend every evening with him like you do.”  
“But he seems to take to you pretty naturally.”  
“Yeah, he does. He hates pretty much every other journalist and reporter out there.”  
“I want to start taking you on patrols. I want you to _get to know_ Atlas.” Claire announced, “I think I know who it is.”  
“So you _didn’t_ give up!”  
“I gave up _publicly_ trying to figure it out.” She chuckled.  
“So who are you thinking?”  
“I don’t want to tell you yet. I need you to meet Atlas, form your own opinions of him, and then I’ll tell you what I think, in like, a week.” She sighed. “I don’t want you forming pre-conceptions of him, that’s all.”  
“Gotcha.”  
“Meet me at 7 by the Unclimbable Tree.”  
“See you then.”  
Claire hung up. Toby knew Jim better than anyone. If anyone could confirm her suspicions about who was behind Atlas’s persona, it was Toby.

There was a gentle knock at Claire’s window. She glanced up from her laptop, where she had been reading an article about Bular—Apparently, Atlas had said in an interview, Bular wanted to open the portal to free his father from being imprisoned… somewhere. Another dimension. And the only thing that could activate the portal to that realm was Atlas’s superpowers, or something.  
Atlas was out there, sitting on the roof just outside the window. Claire hurried over and slid the window open.  
“Hey,” he said with a smile.  
“Hey,” Claire returned, “Is everything alright?”  
“Oh, yeah, everything’s fine,” He said. “I just, uh, wanted to see you.”  
Claire chuckled.  
“I can go, if you want—” He started, backing away from the window a bit.  
“No,” Claire grabbed him by the arm and yanked him inside. He yelped in surprise, and the two of them tumbled onto the floor, her momentum carrying her downwards and Atlas landing right on top of her. They laid there for a second, laughing, before Atlas very quickly got up off of Claire, standing awkwardly in the middle of the room. Claire sat up, crossing her legs on the rug.  
He looked different in broad daylight. He wasn’t on the job right now—she wondered if he’d just been on his way back from something, or if he put on his Atlas suit just so he could visit Claire. He seemed much more relaxed, but also a little more flustered because he didn’t have his patrol duty to hide behind.  
“Oh,” Claire said, as Atlas sat back down on the floor beside her. “I invited Toby to come patrol with us tonight.”  
“You did?” He asked, lifting an eyebrow.  
“Yeah, he wanted to get to know you better, so I asked if he wanted to tag along.” Not the full truth, but she supposed not entirely a lie, either.  
“Alright,” he said. He seemed nervous, but not opposed to it.  
“It’s not like anything interesting ever happens during those patrols,” Claire said, rolling her eyes.  
“Yeah, you’re right.”  
They sat in a comfortable silence for a little while. Claire picked up her phone and absentmindedly scrolled through it, keenly aware of the fact that, out of the corner of her eye, she could see Atlas staring at her with a warm, lazy smile.  
Atlas opened his mouth and drew in a breath, like he was about to say something. Claire glanced up, but then he closed his mouth again and looked the other way.  
“What?” Claire teased, lightly kicking him in the leg.  
“Nothing,” he said. “Nothing.”  
“Something’s on your mind,” she pressed. Atlas looked around the room, then out the window. Anywhere but directly at Claire.  
“Can I—” Atlas frowned. “No, it’s stupid. This is stupid. I should go—”  
“Atlas, come on.”  
“Can I kiss you again?” His voice was quiet, and his eyes finally locked with hers. She gasped softly—that wasn’t at all what she expected him to say. She wasn’t sure _what_ she had expected him to say.  
Atlas then shook his head and started to stand up. Claire grabbed his hand. He froze.  
“Come here, you idiot,” She said, weaving her fingers with his. He settled back down where he was sitting on the carpet, and slowly he leaned in, his lips meeting hers. Her heart pounded in her chest. She combed her fingers through the hair on the back of his head with the hand that wasn’t entwined with his.  
“Sorry,” he said quietly when they parted. “I just—”  
“Don’t apologize, you dingus.”  
“I think I’m in love with you,” he said, just barely above a whisper.  
“And I, you.” Claire replied. His gorgeous blue eyes widened.  
“You can’t,” He said.  
“And why not?”  
“I’d be taking advantage of you.”  
“How so?”  
“You don’t know who’s under the mask.”  
“What if I think I _do_ know who’s under the mask?”  
Atlas didn’t respond. It took him a few minutes, likely collecting his thoughts, before he spoke again.  
“I know you want to figure out who I am,” he said. “What if… What if you’re disappointed with what you find?”  
Claire chuckled. “If I’m right about who you are,” she said, “I’m not disappointed.”  
She cupped his cheek with her hand, brushing her thumb over the fabric of his mask. How did that thing stay on his face? It was just a band around his eyes, not tied around the back of his head or anything. She wondered if his suit was as magical as his sword.  
Given that it glowed, it probably was. She wondered if he had a magical transformation sequence like Sailor Moon or She-Ra.  
Given that it was _Atlas_, he probably did. She’d kill to see that.  
He stood and made his way to the window. “I’ll see you tonight,” he said, and he left without another word.

“How about this,” Atlas said as the two of them waited for Toby. Atlas was hanging upside-down in the tree, as per usual, and Claire leaned up against its trunk, looking up at him. “Go to the grocery store and grab one of those whipped cream pies—”  
“Oh my god, Atlas, no.”  
“and when school starts back up, smush it in the face of the person you think I am.”  
“What if I’m wrong? I’ll embarrass myself.”  
“If you get it wrong, at least it’ll just be really funny to watch.”  
“And if I get it right?”  
Atlas shrugged.  
“So I won’t know whether I got it right or not.”  
Atlas nodded, grinning. “But maybe you’ll start a food fight.”  
“This is a lose-lose situation for me,” Claire grumbled.  
“Come on, Claire. Just imagine, Steve Palchuk with whipped cream all over his face.”  
“You’re not Steve.”  
“Holy crap!” Toby’s voice rang out as he approached Claire and Atlas. “You can climb that tree?”  
“I—Yeah,” Atlas fumbled, climbing down a little less-than-gracefully. “It’s not that big of a deal.”  
“Not that big of a deal?” Toby repeated, “Nobody’s been able to climb that tree in the history of, like, mankind!”  
“He’s up there every night,” Claire said with a shrug. “He won’t tell me how he does it.”  
“That ruins the fun, don’t you think?” Atlas grinned.  
“He goes to our school,” Claire said to Toby. “Somewhere, maybe in some of our classes, someone’s got this tree all figured out.”  
“Someone who doesn’t like to show off,” Toby commented, thoughtfully.  
“Alright,” Atlas rolled his eyes, changing the conversation. “I brought something for you two.”  
“Atlas, I don’t think I can handle any more of Stuart’s weird milkshakes,” Claire joked.  
“No, no, it’s not a milkshake this time.”  
“You two buy each other milkshakes?” Toby asked. “Wow, I can smell the romance brewing from a mile away. Jimbo’s gonna throw a fit when he realizes he’s being one-upped by a superhero.”  
Atlas laughed. It was the kind of laugh where he had to double over and brace a hand on his knee, using the other hand to wipe tears from his eyes as he tried his best to regain his composure. Why had Atlas found that so funny?  
“Claire and I aren’t—”  
“You kissed me this afternoon, Atlas. Don’t even try that.”  
“You kissed her???” Toby was grinning.  
“Okay, stop. Stop. Rewind, you guys, I got something for you.”  
“Don’t change the subject,” Toby sung.  
“I’m not changing the subject, Tobes!”  
“Hey,” Toby barked, the tone of the conversation shifting dramatically. “Only one person calls me Tobes.”  
Atlas put his hands up in the air. “Sorry.”  
Claire shot Toby a knowing glance. A ‘consider-what-this-means’ glance. Toby frowned, then shook his head.

Atlas produced two palm-sized, slightly glowing… rocks? one purple, one orange. “I need your help.”  
He pressed the purple rock into her hand. He gave the orange one to Toby.  
“I don’t know why, or how, but these gemstones have some sort of magical property,” Atlas said. “that gives people superpowers.”  
“We’re gonna be your sidekicks?” Toby asked excitedly.  
“The position is yours to accept,” he said. “I don’t like the idea of putting you two in danger, but I found these earlier today, and they’ve been calling for you two, specifically.”  
“Awesomesauce,” Toby breathed, inspecting the gemstone with a curious excitement that only Toby seemed to have about weird rocks.  
“How does it work?” Claire asked. She looked down at the gemstone in her hands. It pulsated with purple light, and she swore she could hear a voice in her head, calling her name.  
“When I got mine, it took a couple hours, but an incantation showed up on it. Read it out loud, and commit it to memory, because that incantation will be the key to, uh… this.” He gestured to himself. His uniform.

“We’re gonna be superheroes,” Toby said giddily, then louder, “We’re gonna be superheroes!!”


End file.
